be my last and Wrath consume me quite,
One taste of It within the Area caught
Better than at the Table lost outright.

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Indeed, indeed Repentance oft before
I swore, but was I hungry when I swore?
And then and then came Cook--with Hose in hand--
And drowned my glory in a sorry pour.

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What without asking hither harried whence,
And without asking whither harried hence--
O, many a taste of that forbidden Sole
Must down the memory of that Insolence.

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Heaven, but the vision of a Flowing Bowl;
And Hell, the sizzle of a Frying Sole
Heard in the hungry Darkness, where Myself,
So rudely cast, must impotently roll.

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The Vine has a tough Fibre which about
While clings my Being;--let the Canine Flout
Till his Bass Voice be pitched to such loud key
It shall unlock the door I mew without.

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Up from the Basement to the Seventh Flat
I rose, and on the Crown of Fashion sat,
And many a Ball unravelled by the way--
But not the Master's angry Bawl of "Scat!"

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Then to the Well of Wisdom I--and lo!
With my own Paw I wrought to make it flow,
And This was all the Harvest that I reaped:
We come like Kittens and like Cats we go.

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Why be this Ink the Fount of Wit?--who dare
Blaspheme the glistening Pen-drink as a snare?
A Blessing?--I should spread it, should I not?
And if a Curse--why, then upset it!--there!

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A moment's Halt, a momentary Taste
Of Bitter, and amid the Trickling Waste
I wrought strange shapes from Mah to Mahi, yet
I know not what I wrote, nor why they chased.

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Now I beyond the Pale am safely past.
O, but the long, long time their Rage shall last,
Which, tho' they call to supper, I shall heed
As a Stone Cat should heed a Pebble cast.

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And that perverted Soul beneath the Sky
They call the Dog--Heed not his angry Cry;
Not all his Threats can make me budge one bit,
Nor all his Empty Bluster terrify.

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They are no other than a moving Show
Of whirling Shadow Shapes that come and go
Me-ward thro' Moon illumined Darkness hurled,
In midnight, by the Lodgers in the Row.

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Myself when young did eagerly